Quintus Servinton

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Australian literature

The first Australian novel, Quintus Servinton (1830–31), was written by a convict, Henry Savery; Henry Kingsley’s Geoffrey Hamlyn (1859) is often judged the first major Australian novel. John West’s History of Tasmania (1852) was a work of remarkable scope and insight.

…first Australian novel, Henry Savery’s Quintus Servinton, was published in 1831. It is strongly autobiographical, and its convict theme amounts to special pleading. But it does not emphasize the exotic possibilities of its Australian scenes. James Tucker’s Ralph Rashleigh; or, The Life of an Exile (written in 1844; published in…